The city of Liverpool has been subjected to many unprovoked beatings over the years – but the very least we can expect our enemies to do is make themselves known.

Some, however, prefer to lurk in the shadows. Perhaps they haven’t got the courage of their convictions. Perhaps they have no courage whatsoever.

It can only now be revealed, 30 years after the event, that the then chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe, thought we should basically be left to rot.

For many, the roots of the new Liverpool were sown in the wake of the Toxteth riots, when then Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine arrived here as the “minister for Merseyside”.

But if it had been left to some people . . .

Sir Geoffrey Howe came over all poetic as he attempted to persuade Margaret Thatcher to abandon Liverpool to a fate of “managed decline” (and how wrong he proved to be!)

He dismissively and disgustingly said it would be “regrettable if some of the brighter ideas for renewing economic activity were to be sown only on relatively stony ground on the banks of the Mersey.”

Howe may have been dangerously wrongheaded and totally unfeeling in suggesting the government effectively dump one of this country’s major cities, but at least he seemed to understand the scale of the cruelty he was advocating.

The phrase “managed decline”, he said, was “not a term for use, even privately. It is much too negative.”